Disfluencies

Abstract

AbstractSpeech disfluencies interrupt the continuous flow of speech and may thus present challenges for conversational interaction. In fluent speech, there are few interruptions, and listeners can concentrate on the contents of the speech without being disturbed by the manner in which the speech is produced. ‘Disfluency’ refers to the interruption of ongoing speech and exhibits features such as silent and filled pauses, sound prolongations, repetitions, and cut-off utterances. According to the studies presented in this chapter, the durational mean proportions of disfluencies and ungrammatical expressions are greater in the speech of participants with ASD (26.4%) than in the control group (15.5%) (Wiklund & Laakso, 2020). Individual variation in the amount of disfluency is high within both groups. In addition, a qualitative difference can be found: The boys with ASD produce long and complex disfluent turns with word searches, self-repairs, false starts, fillers, sound prolongations, inconsistent syntactic structures, and grammatical errors, whereas the control group members mainly produce fillers and sound prolongations. In the conversational interactions of the speakers with ASD, disfluencies also cause comprehension problems; the control group members, in turn, do not experience comprehension problems (Wiklund & Laakso, 2019, 2020).KeywordsDisfluenciesUngrammatical utterancesDisfluent speechComprehension problemsInteractionASDAutismConversation analysis